


A Thirst and a Drink

by Barkour



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 16:50:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8454247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: After defeating Dr Junkenstein, Hanzo retrieves arrows, McCree figures the score, and two strangers make an exchange.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just foolin' around with no real purpose or plot, to get a hang on voices. I might write more and I might not. Implied background Jack/Ana.

A foul odor stuck to the monster, a stink of the grave. Hanzo set his boot on the thing's throat and heaved to draw out the last of the arrows. Blood, half-congealed, pattered from the shaft.

"Whoo," said the gunslinger. His tread was heavy on the cobblestones. "Smells like the ass end of an ass." He laughed at his own joke.

Hanzo gave the arrow a crisp shake. More gore, splattering the dirtied stones of the old bridge. He wrapped the shaft in a length of old canvas with the others, salvaged and in need of cleaning and repair. At last he deigned to grant the gunslinger a look.

The man puffed. "Aw, c'mon. Least you could do is give me a word after the night we had. You sure were chatty 'bout those cherry trees a few hours back."

Hanzo arched his brow. A few hours back, the evening's work had only just begun. Tucking the canvas end into the bundle, he hefted the weight of it. Two steps, lightly taken, brought him even with the gunslinger's shoulder.

The man was tall and broadly set, thick-featured, hairy. His hat, tipped back from his face, cast a shadow across his brow. He smelled like gunmetal, smoked powder, sweat. The metal arm gleamed. He'd turned his sleeves up.

"Seishu," said Hanzo. He brushed past, the arrows tucked beneath his arm. 

The gunslinger's boot scraped. A chiming, of spurs. "Now run that by me again."

"A word. As you asked."

He made a grumbling noise and said, "Guess I got what I paid for."

"We have not yet been paid," said Hanzo, "and you owe me."

The gunslinger was grinning. They descended together through the old gate and along the curving road, towards the lonesome inn where the alchemist, strange woman, tended to the soldier's broken arm. 

"Way I reckon it, the ledger's other way around. That bombardier had you dead to rights." The gunslinger ticked off the count on his fingers. The hinges gaped darkly. "The Reaper. The old doc."

"Yet it was my arrows that felled the abomination." He looked up his nose at the gunslinger. "How lucky, that its hook did not snap your back."

The gunslinger twisted his mouth ruefully. It rucked his brown cheek, made soft curves beneath his thick beard. "Damn thing about made a hook of my spine. Might be I do owe you one."

At the twist in the road, Hanzo paused. The gunslinger took another step, two more, and then he too stopped.

"We will consider it even."

The gunslinger considered him. Then he reached for his hat, tipping it forward in some strange, American salute. Two fingers sat on the brim, the thumb arched beneath.

"Real generous of you, fella."

"Hm." Hanzo resumed walking. "You think me generous. A pity. I thought you clever."

"High praise coming from a man talking geometry while I'm talking plain numbers."

Hanzo clicked his tongue. "Yes, I remember. Your ninety-eight omnics--"

"Would've been a round hundred if you hadn't sniped 'em out from me," he grumbled. "Ain't my fault a six shooter's faster than a bow and arrow."

The contest had been the gunslinger's suggestion, a challenge Hanzo had gladly accepted in the twilight time when the targets were few and lethargic. As the evening progressed, the hordes growing, the waves longer, and the gunslinger louder and cockier, Hanzo had found himself childishly driven to prove his count the higher.

"Nor is it my fault my aim is finer," said Hanzo with unkind serenity.

The gunslinger rubbed at his eyes and grunted. "Owe you a drink now, don't I?"

Earlier the gunslinger had asked Hanzo of his home. Now, as first creeping light of dawn began to peck at the horizon, Hanzo wondered what business had a cowboy in decrepit Europe, in the crumpled shadow of the empires of steam. 

It was the sort of thing that would have amused Genji, a man in spurs with a horseman's hat and a gun with a spinning chamber. The thought of Genji nudging his side in delight soured. Hanzo let it pass. 

"Perhaps tomorrow," said Hanzo at the door to the inn.

The gunslinger eyed him. More consideration. "Sure. Mornings ain't for drinking anyhow."

"No," said Hanzo. "Only whatever cheap spirits they serve at this tavern." He gave the gunslinger a considering look of his own. "You asked that I pass my flask around. Seishu will make a fitting toast to our victory."

"That so," said the gunslinger. He rested his shoulder against the doorframe. He looked particularly strange in the stirring light, as strange as Hanzo must look to him. 

"It would be good," said Hanzo, "to share with another anachronism."

"Hey, now," said the gunslinger. "I'm a real fashion plate back home."

"More 'tall tales,'" he said, quoting the soldier.

"Taller than those dragons you were yarning about?" The gunslinger kicked the inn door open. The fire in the hearth was near dead, a smoldering darkness flecked with red spots.

"You never did lemme get a look at them."

"Perhaps I felt they weren't needed, with your gun."

"Now I know that's a lie," said the gunslinger. He was grinning again, broad as his jaw. "You been talking down about Peacekeeper since I made fun of that bow of yours."

"It's loud and uncivilized," said Hanzo bluntly. "An inelegant tool for an inelegant man."

"Shoot," said the gunslinger. "Right in the heart."

At last Hanzo could not pretend. "Your name," he demanded. 

The gunslinger said, "McCree," and looked surprised. "Jesse, if you want the Christian name."

Jesse McCree. An absurd name. It fit him.

"Shimada Hanzo," he said to the gunslinger.

"Shimada Hanzo." The gunslinger pulled the vowels out of shape in his mouth. "Well."

They looked at each other in the dim lighting of the main room. The soldier and the alchemist had gone, to their rooms or to one alone. A history tied the old man and the old woman together, an unknown history without shape.

There was no history between the gunslinger and the archer. Hanzo bore enough history on his back. He wondered what the gunslinger bore on his. How long since he had last wondered at such a thing? It was the night, the hard night, that left Hanzo beaten with melancholy.

"Well, hey," said the gunslinger. "Might as well make it official."

Hanzo blinked. The gunslinger stripped the glove of his whole hand and offered it, bare-knuckled, to Hanzo. 

"Pleasure working with you, Shimada."

In the custom, Hanzo took his hand. The gunslinger gripped heavily, too much so; but his palm was rough and warm.

"And you," said Hanzo. He redirected his tongue. "You performed adequately."

"Lord, you're a stinger." 

Their hands fell, belated. Dark hair lined the gunslinger's arm: Jesse's arm. The gunslinger scratched at his beard. 

"Carry these arrows," said Hanzo, thrusting the bundle at him without waiting for an agreement. "And I will share a drink with you."

"All pretty talk from you," said Jesse without heat. "What happened to the cherry blossoms and the poetry?"

"I grew tired of your questions," said Hanzo. "Perhaps liquor will keep your mouth shut."

"Oh, honey," said Jesse, following after him with the broadest grin yet, "you ain't heard nothing yet."


End file.
